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About Me

is an unapologetic, bleeding-heart liberal who writes about everything from politics to private parts. A TV-writer in a former life, her credits include "Big Spender" for Animal Planet,and "A Child Too Many," "Cradle of Conspiracy" & "Deceived By Trust," for Lifetime

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

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… but rarely have we ever been accused of imparting any actual wisdom.

So imagine my surprise when the “Words of Wisdom” website chose me to honor with today’s “Blogger of Note” designation.

Having lived through a number of decades and survived world changes that were the stuff of science fiction when I was a child, I guess one can’t help but gather a bit of wisdom along the way, and maybe I do have a tendency to track it wherever I go like someone forgetting to wipe their feet on a door mat.

I’ve been told some people new to “injaynesworld” may be stopping by to check the place out and that I should suggest a few posts for them to peruse, but first let me direct your attention to the subtitle of this blog above, “… where nothing is sacred.” Consider yourself warned. Now peruse away. All I ask is that you put the toilet seat down and replace my booze when you leave.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

The winner for the most unique Earth Day commemorative is the Center for Biological Diversity, which passed out a quarter of a million of these nifty endangered-species condoms in U.S. cities, Mexico and Puerto Rico on Thursday.

Meant to highlight the role of human overpopulation in the elimination and endangerment of other species, each package includes information on the species, facts about overpopulation and species extinction, and suggestions on how the human population can be stabilized.

As a form of birth control, these should be very effective. Just reading all that stuff would be enough to blow the mood for me.

###

This week's "You Can't Make This Shit Up Award" goes to Sue Lowden...

The likely Republican nominee for the Senate from Nevada has single-handedly solved the whole health care debate by advocating a barter system to pay your doctor.

Ms. Lowden, pictured here with Faux News supporter Sean Hannity, stated emphatically: "I’m telling you that this works. In the olden days our grandparents wouldbring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I’ll paint your house. Doctors are very sympathetic people.I’m not backing down from that system. Those doctors who you pay cash, you can barter, and that would get prices down in a hurry. And I would say go out, go ahead and barter with your doctor.”

So, chickens for checkups -- and what? A cow for colitis? Maybe a nice side of pork for an ailing prostate? Come on, Doc… Whaddaya say?

###

A plus-size controversy over plus-size women erupted this week...

... when both ABC and Fox refused to air the following Lane Bryant ad, stating it was unacceptable for the 8:00 pm “family” viewing hour. Are curvaceous women really too “racy” for prime time?

... for using software to target women recently diagnosed with breast cancer and then canceling their policies. The new Health Care Reform bill will make such a practice, known as rescission, illegal. Wellpoint has, predictably, issued a statement denying the charge.

Having never known of an insurance company that didn’t try to weasel their way out of paying a claim, I’m sticking with my original opinion.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Yay, me! I’ve made it through yet another year with a roof over my head, my friendships still strong, and my health intact.

Last year was a milestone birthday and I had an elegant bash thrown in my honor where I got to wear “That One Special Dress.” This year, a small lunch with great friends at a favorite restaurant is more than enough.

My birthday group consists of seven bodacious broads who have been gathering together, year after year, since 1996 to celebrate our individual birthdays. Traditions like this become all the more important as time blows by at warp speed and obligations tug us this way and that.

So today, as I’m off to eat, drink and be merry, I’ll leave you with this one simple thought: Don’t postpone joy…

And while I'm out getting my party on, here's a little blast from the past I call, "Apps We'd Like To See..."

Yeah, I've seen the commercials, too “There’s an app for everything,” my ass. Oh, sure. Maybe if you want to hear fart sounds or translate fuck you into Mandarin Chinese. But what about the things we really need done?

I need an app that will make me a Margarita.

Exercise for me so I can sit here sipping the Margarita it just made while it revs up my heart rate and makes me sweat like a pig. (Do pigs actually sweat? Wait. There’s an app for that.)

Clean the toilet, and the cat's toilet, too.

Run me a nice bath.

Now give me a manicure.

Go get that nasty little pap smear I’ve been putting off, and shove your tit in a vice, too, while you're at it.

Time for another Margarita.

And I’ll have a Cobb salad for lunch, please.

Print me some money, small bills will do. I'm going shopping. No, thank you. I can do that myself, but I'll need you to park the car.

Kill the rat-bastard gophers who are killing my lawn.

Now re-seed the lawn.

Unclutter my desk… and my life.

Wash my car and go get gas -- 25 miles out on the highway at the cheap station.

Grocery shop. Don’t forget the tequila.

Empty the garbage. Recycle, and crush the boxes, please.

A foot rub would be nice right about now.

Fix dinner. The fat-absorber app will take care of that cake I'll be having for dessert.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Am I the only one who thinks these guys are just trying to outdo each other? This time it’s 76-year-old Larry King who’s been allegedly humping the 45-year-old sister of his 50-year-old wife. Got all that? Apparently, King’s wife became suspicious when she checked his credit card receipts and found several lavish gifts including a $160,000 car.

I’m just blown away by the fact that he could charged a $160,000 car to his credit card. I’ve gone over my limit just filling my gas tank.

This will be King’s eighth divorce. That’s a lot of math. While certainly slimy, at least no Nazis or tattoos are said to be involved.

For King’s own good, it’s clearly time to revoke his Viagra prescription.

###

You can't say these folks don't know how to have a good time...

Another Tea Party anti-tax rally was held in Washington, DC, on Wednesday where the outraged and outrageous gathered apparently to protest that their taxes are the lowest they’ve been in 60 years. Go figure…

Wandering the crowd was a man dressed in tar and feathers wearing an Obama “Joker” mask and, as if that wasn’t entertaining enough, former SNL cast member Victoria Jackson played the ukulele and sang “There’s a communist living in the White House.”

Wonder what she would have said about that well-known communist, President Eisenhower who presided over a top income tax rate of 91%.

###

Making your point known…

You’ve gotta love the French who have unveiled their latest weapon in the battle against STDs: a 120-foot helium-filled rubber. The flying machine is known as "Condomfiere" and a group known as CondomFly are hoping it will be the "Goodyear Blimp of Safe Sex."

Thursday, April 15, 2010

This morning, I lost my internet. One minute it was there and the next it was gone.

I sat perfectly still for the longest time, just staring at the computer screen completely in denial. Then I realized something really quite frightening. My mind was a total blank. I looked around inside and there wasn’t a thought to be found.

The umbilical cord to my source had been cut and I was vanishing fast. I panicked and hit every button I could find.

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Perspiration mixed with tears ran down my face. Animal-like moans of distress began emanating from deep in my throat.

Then I heard a gentle, soothing voice, tiny and from a distance, that I recognized as my own. “You existed before the Internet, Jayne.”

Before the Internet?

What a concept.

But, of course, the voice was right. I had existed for a good many years before the Internet, although so completely had this technology taken over my life that I struggled to recall them.

Slowly, bits of memories began to float back… There had been face-to-face conversations with people where we asked each other not “How R U?”, but “How are you?” and then we listened and sometimes even hugged – actually putting our arms around each other, not just ((( ))).

I didn’t spend hours friending people electronically that I’d never meet in person. I had real-life friends. I still have real-life friends. Why don’t I make more time for them?

Tweet was a sound that a bird made. Birds… Yes, I remember now.

The phone’s ring used to cheer me. It was almost always somebody I wanted to talk to. When did I start to be annoyed at it for interrupting my busy online life?

And how many updates do I really need from CNN? Will my world come to an end if I don’t find out about the latest sex scandal, salmonella outbreak, or NBA standings before the evening news?

I recall when my credit cards weren’t maxed out because if I wanted to buy something I actually had to go to the trouble of driving to a store, finding a parking spot, and shopping for it.

In my own home I was pretty much safe from the temptations of advertisers as long as I didn’t turn on the radio or TV. Now they’re stalking me. There’s this one scary old dude who wants to sell me a mortgage and follows me everywhere. “The Loft” thinks I’m interested in their spring line, and how did Price Grabber know I needed a new camera?

Gone are the days when people only knew things about me that I wanted them to know. Now I can be Googled – and without benefit of lubrication, too.

I took a deep breath and dried my tears. It’s a beautiful day. I’ll take a walk. Maybe call a friend to meet for coffee. I’ve been meaning to wash my car. And it’s spring – time to plant the veggie garden. There’s no end to the things I can do!

Then it was back. A little screen apologizing for the disruption. My open pages restored, there they all were again – my people. Look at them. Those smiling avatars. We’ve shared so much.

“Back away from the computer, Jayne!”

Wow. What happened to your gentle, soothing voice?

“Don’t make me bitch-slap your sorry ass, girlfriend.”

I can’t just vanish on everyone. What will they think? I’m just going to say good-bye, explain my epiphany – the garden, the birds, the friends –

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

I recently received this very astute comment from my friend, Fragrant Liar:

“I find it curious that the people making the biggest splashes in 'news' are the people who are sensationalist grubbers with or without the media's help. But I detest that these unimportant, valueless people are given more headlines than the actual worth-knowing, worth-paying-attention-to news. It's like we as a group and the media are obsessed with crap, the stinkier the better. We are like flies.”

It got me thinking, which is always a dangerous sign… Why are we so hooked on junk food TV?

I like a little celebrity gossip as much as the next person, but these days it sometimes seems just plain impossible to get away from. As a child, I recall the TV being called the “boob tube” -- back when it actually was a tube -- but never has that term been so accurate as now.

While few people admit to actually watching these shows, clearly we do and en masse or else these media “stars” would not continue to be plastered all over the television and magazine covers.

I don’t think anyone can blame Obama for this one, although I’m sure Sarah Palin would give it her best shot.

How did we get here? Let’s take a little stroll down memory lane…

Not that long ago, there were separate news divisions at the TV networks and they weren’t expected to make money. Networks regarded these news divisions as their crown jewels and took great pride in them. For those of us who recall watching real news shows with journalists like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, we knew theirs were voices we could trust and, generally speaking, we were a pretty well-informed society.

Back then there was also something called the "Fairness Doctrine” and it required all broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. It didn’t require equal time for opposing views, just that contrasting viewpoints be presented.

This was a pretty cool thing, especially if you lived in an area of the country where broadcast signals were limited, because you could still be sure that what you were getting was a fair view of what was going on and not just what that particular broadcaster in your area wanted you to hear.

During the Reagan administration the Fairness Doctrine was abolished, along with a whole slew of regulations that limited the ability of any one corporation to acquire a monopoly of broadcast and news media.

What followed was a takeover of the three major networks by multi-national conglomerates whose sole purpose was to squeeze profits out of every aspect of their holdings. They had no interest in a well-informed American public. In fact, the less we knew about what was really going on, the better. They still like it that way.

Suddenly, the autonomous news divisions were incorporated into the networks’ entertainment divisions and voila – we now have a complete blur between what is news and what is entertainment. In this week’s Sunday Recap, I reported that Glenn Beck himself stated that Fox was not a news entity. It was an entertainment entity.

And so we find ourselves where we are today, with very little choice in real news programming, despite the explosion of 24-hour “news” stations -- insatiable beasts that must continually be fed. The result: Junk Food TV

Not coincidently, these same multi-national conglomerates that own all our TV networks also own most of our major newspapers and magazines. Is anybody seeing a pattern here?

So… Why do we continue to watch and buy the very crap we profess so strongly to be disgusted by? Not really so hard to figure out, is it. A starving man will eat what’s put in front of him.

And now injaynesworld returns to our regular programming of nipples and asses…

Sunday, April 11, 2010

President Reagan, that is. You know, the Republican poster boy for all things right, true and just about America.

In 1987, Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russian Secretary General, Mikhail Gorbachev, which resulted in the destruction of a total of 2,692 missiles, 846 by the U.S. and 1,846 by the Soviet Union.

In his memoirs, President Reagan wrote: "For the eight years I was president, I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind."

This week President Obama signed a similar, albeit much more modest, agreement with Russia, which limits each side to 1,550 strategic nuclear weapons deployed and ready to fire, still many times that needed to destroy the planet about seven times over.

American brain trust and well-know wolf slayer Sarah Palin had this to say: "It's unbelievable. No administration in America's history would, I think, ever have considered such a step that we just found out President Obama is supporting today.”

While Rudy Giuliani derided the idea of a nuclear-free world as "a 60-year dream of the left."

Are you spinning in your grave yet, Ronnie?

###Anyone care that Lindsay Lohan’s dad, most recently in the news for being accused of punching his last girlfriend in the vagina, is engaged to John Gosselin’s ex Kate Major who also used to be Lindsay’s assistant? Yeah, me neither, but it does give us just a little more insight into why this young woman may be so screwed up.

Continuing with what passes for entertainment these days…

###

According to the recent edition of Forbes Magazine, Faux News entertainer, Glenn Beck made $32 million in 2009 and you know what? Good for him. He worked hard, made a success of himself and that’s the American way.

Beck told Forbes that he is more interested in the business than the politics of what he does. "I could give a flying crap about the political process," he said. "We're an entertainment company."

Finally, some words of truth out of Beck’s mouth. What they do at Faux is not news. It is pure, unadulterated entertainment and should be taken as such and no more. Break open a beer, sit back and enjoy the fun, that is if you like your entertainment racist, bigoted, and sprinkled with calls to violence.

Personally, I’ll take a good lesbian, bondage club any day…

###

Yes, this week it was revealed that members of the RNC – the party of family values – spent nearly $2,000 of donors' money at “Voyeur” a West Hollywood club that features an S&M bondage-design theme complete with a net suspended from the ceiling where topless women perform, and a glass booth where even more X-rated fun can be viewed.

While most of the reaction has been critical, it has garnered the GOP a new supporter. Porn star, Stormy Daniels, a potential candidate for the U.S. Senate in Louisiana, has decided to renounce the Democratic Party and become a Republican saying in a press release that she sees the RNC-funded outing as a sign that the GOP’s values now best match her own. "I know from experience that a mere $1900 outlay at a club with the reputation of Voyeur is a clear indication of a frugal investment with a keen eye toward maximum return," Daniels added.

Now there’s a Republican I could vote for.

###

Then there’s this little gem…

Remember the self-described “Christian warriors” who were arrested recently in Detroit for plotting to violently bring down the U.S. government?

They’ve all asked for public defenders.

###

On a more upbeat note, our congratulations go out to screen star legend, Elizabeth Taylor, who is engaged to be married for the ninth time.

The 78-year-old is engaged to 49-year-old Jason Winters of Sterling Winters Management, the management team for Janet Jackson. Taylor has recently called Winters, “one of the most wonderful men I’ve ever known.”

You go girl! Oh, wait… Oh my God! HE’S BLAAAAAACK!!!

###

Finally, this week’s WTF Award goes to Nike…

In what’s got to be the most creepy, weird moment of the week, Nike launched this ad apparently in an effort to make us believe that Tiger was getting an ass-whooping from his dead dad:

Thursday, April 8, 2010

On this week’s “American Idol” it was all about the music of The Beatles and as I watched the contestants, some barely in their 20’s, interpret this music that had inspired a generation decades before any of them were born, it got me thinking back to that time in my own life when we truly did believe “All You Need Is Love.”

Ah, for the chance to be 20 again and know what I know now.

Dear Jayne…

Mom always said it’s as easy to love a rich man as a poor one. Give it a shot.

Margaritas are to be sipped, not guzzled. Stop at two.

You know that saying, “Save for a rainy day?” It rains.

Wear a bra. Your boobs will be hanging around your waist soon enough.

Pissing off small-minded people in positions of power? Not such a good idea.

There will be accidents in your life and you’ll be happy you were wearing clean underwear.

You will never have the bubbly personality of a blond. Stop bleaching the crap out of your hair.

No woman likes her own body. Yours will be blessed with good health. Be grateful for that.

Just because a man wants to have sex with you doesn’t mean he loves you.

What goes ‘round really does come ‘round. Be kind.

Go ahead and take those chances in life. For the most part, they’re going to work out okay.

There will be future generations. Take care of the planet for them.

Everyone is not going to like you. What matters is that you like yourself.

Finally… One day you’ll cease to be afraid, so you might as well start now.

I’m glad I came of age in the ‘60s and went through my twenties with a generation that took to the streets to end a war and truly believed, however naively, that we would be the ones to bring about a world of peace, love and equality for all.

I just wish I knew what the hell happened to us. Where we lost our way. How we let a society develop where individual rights trump all sense of community responsibility.

If 20-year-old Jayne really did know what I know now, I have to wonder what she’d have to say to me.

Monday, April 5, 2010

“No, Ms. Martin will not be making any statements…” “I’m sorry. Ms. Martin has no response at this time...”

If you’re just joining me for the first time, let me assure you those are words you will never hear, because I always have an opinion and I’m not the least bit shy about sharing it whether it’s appropriate or not. In fact, “inappropriate” is my middle name.

Today, I’m very excited to have been chosen by those great broads over at CCWA to be their featured blogger and I have to wonder…

What’s up with people who don’t leave comments?

Which leads me to ask: Could it be our fault as writers?

Some questions to consider may be: Is my voice authentic or am I trying to mimic the writing style and sound of others? Are my posts written in such a way as to provoke thought and entice my readers to join into a conversation, or do I just prattle away about myself every day like a lover with no concern for the pleasure of their partner?

Sure, we all have days when we just want to vent and readers will put up with that for a while because we all know what it’s like to need a sympathetic ear or a little encouragement, but there are millions of blogs out there and the ones that stand out and get the most comments are the ones that entertain and engage us in some way.

If we’re not getting the responses we want, it might be time to rethink our content.

Choice in commenting programs can make a difference, too. I love the Disqus system, which sends my readers an e-mail when I’ve responded to their comment. It’s a great way to get and keep a dialogue going. I write a response to every comment I receive, except the “Hi. I’m following you. Follow me” ones that are about as inviting as a drive-by shooting.

At the very least, word verification has got to go. We all read a lot of blogs and the extra time it takes to (A) figure out the damn word, and (B) type it in along with our URL, e-mail address, etc, can really add up. The easier it is for people to leave a comment, the more likely they are to do so.

And as for all you readers…

A writer needs an audience… because if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around it really doesn’t make a sound.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

On this Christian holiday we hear many lament about how Jesus’ resurrection has been usurped by the Easter Bunny and his colorful eggs. Another holy day that’s lost its true meaning.

Not so fast…

Long before the advent of Christianity there was, according to Anglo-Saxon lore, a goddess of spring known as Eostre from which the name Easter is derived. She was a fertility goddess and eggs and rabbits were sacred to her.

As the myth goes, Eostre once saved a bird, whose wings had frozen during the winter, by turning it into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs and, over time, became our modern Easter Bunny.

Eggs, like rabbits, are fertility symbols and came to symbolize the rising fertility of the earth at spring time.

Fast forward to Medieval Europe where hard-boiled eggs were dyed red in memory of Christ’s blood, then given to children as a lucky charm to preserve their health over the next year. To this day, in parts of Europe, red dyed eggs are still considered to have protective qualities and are buried in fields and vineyards to guard against lightning and hail – hence the Easter egg hunt.

So while you’re celebrating this day in whatever way is traditional for you, remember to give a nod to the goddess Eostre… the sister who may have started it all.